Chapter 32 Maria

Chapter 32

?Maria

Maria has played out the scenario obsessively in her mind for the last two nights.

She's watched people in Lucinda's neighborhood and knows how to blend in. She's purchased a toddler's scooter on Amazon, muddied it up in a park, and when she pulls it from the car and jogs lightly across the Notting Hill street with it slung in hand she looks every inch just another harassed West London yummy-mummy pre- or post-pickup.

She knows the flash point could be eye contact, but most people rarely make eye contact for more than a second in big cities. But she's alive to the possibility that Lucinda might recognize her, though she feels certain, given the heightened nature of the situation she's engineering, that it theoretically will not be a problem.

As a student doctor she helped save people's lives in triage, and those same people had completely forgotten her face less than an hour later. She held their lives in her hands and they wouldn't have been able to spot her in a lineup. She knows that the human brain has only so much attention available at any moment; people don't notice a lot of things when their attention is split.

Even if Lucinda gets a really good look at Maria, so much about her appearance has changed in the last two weeks that it seems very unlikely recognition will kick in quickly enough to be an issue. Maria's hair beneath her cap is cropped tight now, her long soft curls gone. Her eyebrows are gone too, bleached, completely changing the appearance of her face, making it appear broader and less easy to pinpoint without the framing effect dark brows gave her. On top of that Maria took pains to ensure that the clothes she chose—a trench coat, sweatpants, and technical sneakers—were as far from her own feminine softness as conceivable.

After all, the woman with the too-tight chignon only actually met Maria in person once, and that meeting was only perhaps half an hour long.

Besides, Maria has been confirmed dead already. The man this woman sent to kill her in a tub of bathwater in her New York apartment achieved his goal as far as Lucinda knows. Maria is a problem solved in this woman's mind, and until she becomes a direct problem to her again it seems unlikely that Lucinda will make a connection, especially during this brief interaction.

As Maria approaches her Lucinda gives her only a cursory glance and the vaguest of smiles. Maria returns them, and as Lucinda slows to approach her own gate Maria feigns recognition.

"Oh hey. I was just knocking on your door there. Hi, I'm Anna, our house backs onto your garden—on the Fairholt Gardens side?"

Lucinda turns, eyebrows raised in surprise at being engaged in conversation.

Maria has noted that neighbors in this affluent area of London don't appear to speak, know, or even acknowledge one another. They have priced themselves right out of the necessity for conversation.

Maria watches Lucinda squint at her in the fading light, searching for reassuring markers that she is who she professes to be. Already she knows her American accent is working on Lucinda; most of the locals around here were relocated overseas by American finance companies. Maria fits the bill.

She hoicks her cumbersome children's scooter and continues with warmth.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you but my eldest has lobbed my husband's signed Chelsea football into your back garden." Maria raises her hands, scooter too. "I know…the joys of parenthood. But we do what we can, right."

Maria is including her in that—as a dog mother. Lucinda gives an indulgent smile, Penny hopping around her feet with excitement at her mother's rare human interaction.

"Can I be a total pain and grab it from you? The ball?" Maria continues, with a quick look to her own watch, as if she too has a million other things she would rather be doing this evening.

Lucinda looks to Penny, the only other witness, as if the dog might have the answer. Penny nudges her, happy and eager to be involved in the situation. Lucinda gives the woman a final cursory look up and down: she is just one of the many mothers Lucinda often sees hurrying about at the ends and beginnings of days. A woman she will never be, nor has ever really desired to be.

"Sure," Lucinda answers. "I could go, take a look, and bring it up or—" She leaves the idea hanging.

Maria does not jump on it. She leaves Lucinda to finish her own sentence. It will be better if it's Lucinda's idea, easier.

"Or you could come through and grab it? Probably quicker. You know what you're looking for."

Now it's Maria's turn to give the impression of weighing up Lucinda. She looks back over her shoulder as if judging the appropriateness of entering another person's house—then gives a light shrug.

"Er, okay. I'll just grab it and leave you to your evening."

And just like that, social awkwardness and pre-planning have opened Lucinda's front gate and then her front door.

The pair wander into the marble-floored hall of Lucinda's beautiful townhouse, Maria catching sight of a staggering staircase spiraling up to the floor above and a glass one leading down to an open-plan kitchen and garden. Penny skitters in behind them and Lucinda closes the door.

"Garden's through the kitchen," Lucinda tells her, passing to lead the way. "Just down the stairs here."

Maria follows. And at the top of the glass staircase, when Lucinda's back is turned and Penny is following on behind them both, Maria pushes the woman's body hard.

Lucinda only lets out a small yelp as she flies forward. It has in it a tight mixture of shock and anger, as if halfway through the act of falling she's realized what an idiotic mistake she's made—given who Lucinda is—inviting a complete stranger into her home.

Maria knows Lucinda could not have, in that second, realized who she is exactly, but Maria knows Lucinda understands she has made a fundamental error of judgment and in that split second she registers as much.

As Lucinda's body tumbles forward, she flails for the glass balustrades on either side of her, but her fingers only graze the immaculate glass, leaving the faintest of smears as she slams forward into the midpoint of the staircase and slumps unconscious against its clear surface.

Penny barks twice from the top of the stairs before carefully walking down to meet Maria and lick her hand.

Maria waits a few more seconds to check there is no further movement from Lucinda before gently picking up the dog and continuing down the stairs to delicately step over Lucinda's crumpled form, Penny in her arms.

At the bottom of the stairs Maria takes in the expensive open-plan living space that rolls out into a large well-tended garden. Then her eyes land on what she's looking for: beside a large cozy Everhot range cooker lies a comfy dog bed. Maria heads over and gently places the slightly concerned Penny into it. Then she moves the dog's water bowl close so that, after her walk, she will have what she needs close. Penny looks up at Maria with wide eyes, as if unable to work out if she is a threat or a savior.

Penny dealt with, Maria heads back to the huddled mass of Lucinda. She checks for a heartbeat, and there is of course a strong one. The fall was short; it was the impact to the side of her head that knocked her out. Maria does not intend to kill her. She needs Lucinda alive and able to talk.

She carefully unfurls her and, with arms under the fallen woman's shoulders, drags her as gently as she can down the remaining five steps into the kitchen. Maria then lays her out flat and performs a jaw-thrust maneuver on her to prevent her from choking on her own tongue—Maria doubts a spinal injury, but it's always better to be safe.

Maria estimates, from the severity of the blow, that she has a few minutes tops until the woman comes around, the loss of consciousness likely due not to serious trauma but to a mild concussion that will quickly pass.

Maria scans the room for her next requirement but can't see it. She heads quickly back up the glass staircase and into the main sitting room, a large double room, one half of which appears to be Lucinda's minimal home office. She sees the small tablet screen on a stand on a shelf behind the desk. On the tablet's screen four boxes display various rooms in the house. The CCTV hub. She scrolls through the rooms and external cameras, the gate outside still annoyingly hanging open. She checks the kitchen footage where she sees Lucinda and Penny, where she left them. She disables the system, the room cameras each in turn going black.

In the bottom corner of the screen a small red dot is flashing. Tapping on it, Maria sees that it's an alert of the external gate remaining open; Lucinda must have left it ajar expectingthem to be in and out quickly. Maria cancels the alert then scrubs back through the footage from the past ten minutes and deletes all footage of herself. Job done, she wipes the tablet surface clean of her fingerprints and replaces it onto its stand.

—

Back in the kitchen Maria pulls cable ties from her coat pockets and proceeds to bind Lucinda's feet and hands.

The plan is simple: Lucinda will wake up and Maria will get her to say who's responsible for putting her in that house, who was watching, and why. There should be simple answers to these simple questions.

Maria will find out who did this to her and she will end whatever this has been. She isn't interested in revenge, though looking at the way these people live, renumeration after the fact wouldn't hurt her. But her primary aim is making herself safe again and, of course, not ending up in jail.

A groan rises from the body. Lucinda is beginning to come around. Safe in the knowledge she is no longer being filmed, Maria removes her cap and coat because in spite of her not overtly wanting revenge she does want to witness the moment when the other shoe drops for Lucinda. She wants Lucinda to know who she is and to be afraid, very afraid; as afraid as Maria was in the bowels of that house for six days.

Maria does not hear the men enter the house above her. She does not know that the alarm raised by the open gate has been picked up by the private security company. She does not hear them glide down the stairs behind her as she kneels beside Lucinda, whose eyes are beginning to flicker open. She knows nothing about it at all until Lucinda's gaze flits momentarily away from her own to something behind and slightly above her. And then Maria knows nothing at all.

—

Lucinda paces back and forth in angry strides across her open-plan kitchen, hands unconsciously rubbing at the skin where the cable ties left divots in her flesh.

Penny is awake but sleepy in her bed, her eyes following her human back and forth.

"I just don't understand how it got this far? How she found me? Explain to me," she says, hands now pressing down on the air as she stops in front of a man a good deal broader and taller than her. "Explain to me how she got here, how she got through all the layers of security we are supposed to have and made it into my actual fucking house."

The man in front of her seems unfazed by the outburst. Behind him another man, a private doctor, pops medical items back into his bag, his face a mask of professional disinterest. "We'll go back through the sequence chain and plug the gaps. I think you're aware this is the first time a participant has made it off the island. Since the changeover, we have had four non-paying participants, and this has been the only incident. This is a special case. It will not happen again. They want you to continue."

Lucinda splutters out a laugh. "I bet they do. I bet they fucking do. But what assurance do I get? What incentive do I get—because apparently, I'm not even safe now in my own home. God knows what she could have done before you got here. I'm lucky I'm not in a wheelchair after that fall."

"She wanted you alive. She wanted information. She had medical training—trust me, she wasn't trying to kill you. And you know it's incredibly unlikely that anyone will ever get out again. You know that."

Lucinda slumps down hard into one of her kitchen chairs to consider his words.

He advances on her, and part of her retracts internally. She knows she's important to the job, but she is perhaps not that important if she proves too difficult. The rewards for her are huge but the losses as she knows could be substantial.

"Going forward," the broad man tells her, looming over her now, "wear this under everything." He hands her what looks like a medical alert bracelet.

She takes the bracelet in carefully, studying its screenless face.

"It's an ECG, it tracks your heart rate. If you're doing exercise press the side button. If not then we'll come," he tells her with a tight smile.

"But it won't happen again?" she asks.

"It won't, no." There is a finality to his words. The discussion is over.

"And they want me to source another one?" she asks after slipping the band onto her wrist.

"They've sent you three new options. We need a choice by the end of the month. The house needs to be prepared; they want to start implementing the relevant information into the rooms."

"Tell them I will do it, but this will be my last. We discussed an exit strategy after the third, and now I would like to action that."

Behind the man the doctor stands to leave. The two other men who were present earlier have already gone.

"I will pass that on. If it's something you have discussed then I'm sure there will be a resolution soon."

"Okay, thank you," Lucinda answers, her gaze falling now on Maria's abandoned hat and coat, draped across her kitchen table. "And what will you do with her body?" she asks vaguely, certain she won't get a satisfactory answer. And she does not.

"Let me do my job and I'll facilitate you doing your job," he tells her, not without warmth, before picking up the coat and hat and disappearing up Lucinda's staircase. The sound of the front door shutting above her an almost physical release.

She squeezes her eyes shut in the silence that follows and tries to reset. She has reset after much worse.

Penny lets out a muted yowl from her bed. She is hungry. Lucinda rises and goes through the motions of filling Penny's bowl and settling her. Her own thoughts are on what must be done next.

—

Later that night, Lucinda switches on her desktop computer, pulls in her seat, and makes her way through the layers of security on the encrypted platform before finally opening a folder with three labeled files: Person P, Person Q, Person R. The next intake.

Person R's label has an asterisk next to it.